The present invention relates generally to surgical procedures upon articulated body members, and more particularly relates to a restraint for immobilizing an articulated body member such as a human knee in a flexed position to permit surgery upon the hinged portion of the body member.
Surgical procedures for total knee surgery (arthoplasty) are well-known and many forms of prothesis units have been heretofore presented for replacing either or both of the femoral and tibial components of the human knee, as has been described for example in Surgical Technique of the Mormor Modular Knee, copyright 1973, Richards Manufacturing Company, Inc. Such surgery requires a number of hours to complete, and some method for maintaining the knee in a flexed position for extended periods of time during the various surgical procedures. Known devices and methods heretofore presented for providing such flexed restraint have failed to satisfy the criteria of such surgical procedures and, hence, have unduly complicated the overall procedure.
Known conventional restraint materials are unsatisfactory for total knee arthoplasty since, during the course of the operation, it is necessary to periodically extend and flex the patient's leg in order to perform the tasks entailed in removing and rebuilding defective parts of the knee. Thus, the use of restraint material which is not readily releaseable and reattachable would unduly prolong the operation. Further, a primary concern of such procedures is to avoid contamination of the operational site in order to obviate, if possible, any chance of infection and, hence, all materials and surgical equipment must be vigorously sanitized either by gas sterilization or autoclaving. Accordingly, the use of any restraint material which can not withstand vigorous santization is precluded by the nature of the underlying surgery. Moreover, the various steps of the operation require the leg to be sequentially flexed in a plurality of positions and; hence, any restraint material which can not be quickly adjusted is unsatisfactory.
The difficulties attendant the use of restraint materials during knee arthoplasty has generally resulted in the use of surgical team personnel to provide the prerequisite flexed restraint. However, this method is also unsatisfactory because the long periods and awkward positions required to maintain the desired immobilization tends to have an unduly fatiquing effect. More immportantly, such methods restrict the mobility of the surgical team and constitutes inefficient use of highly trained personnel.
Accordingly, it is a major objective of the present invention to provide a restraint device which can undergo both gas sterilization and autoclaving, is efficiently attachable, adjustable and removeable, and is repetitively useable in a plurality of operations to immoblize a body member such as a knee in a plurality of flexed positions.
This objective is achieved by providing an elongate web strap having a patch of curly pile looptype fabric sewn on one of its surfaces which comprises a multiplicity of projecting loops of flexible resilient threads, which are adapted to be hooked by a multiplicity of hooks projecting from a cooperative patch of curly pile hook-type fabric sewn on an opposing surface of the elongate web. This type of interlocking fabric is disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,717,437 and 3,009,235, and is commercially available under the trademark VELCRO in the form of two cooperating tapes, which are adapted to be sewn to opposite edges of a closure for the purpose of providing a separable fastener. When the two tapes are pressed together face-to-face, a multiplicity of tiny hooks on one of the tapes engage a corresponding multiplicity of loops on the other tape, thereby causing the tapes to tenaciously cling to each other. To separate the tapes, all that is required is to grasp the ends of the tapes and pull them directly apart, which causes the hooks to yield and release the loops. Such tapes have heretofore been applied to various forms of sporting equipment to provide sportsmen with a non-slip grasp as set forth in Finney U.S. Pat. No. 3,368,811.
In the preferred embodiment of the present invention, two portions of the curly pile hook-type fabric is sewn on one surface of an elongate web strap so as to be disposed adjacent to one end and to the midportion thereof, respectively, while two portions of the curly pile loop-type material are sewn on corresponding areas of the opposing surface of the strap. In use, the strap is wrapped around the patient's foot such that the hook and loop portions adjacent and midportion are interlocked to releasably secure the strap around the foot; thereafter, the patient's leg is moved to a flexed position, and the hook and loop portions adjacent the ends of the strap are interlocked to releasably immobilize the leg in the desired flexed position. To extend the leg, all that is required is to grasp the ends of the strap and pull them directly away from the patient's leg.
The foregoing and other objectives, features and advantages of the invention will be more readily understood upon consideration of the following detailed description of the invention, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.